Not PC

Saturday, October 03, 2009

‘Tweeting’ on my mind

Never had time to post the (ir)regular Friday Ramble yesterday, and I won’t have time either today.

So if you want you regular bunch o’links – if you want your fix of good stuff around the net to browse through over the weekend, then why not head to my Twitter page where I find the good stuff so you don’t have to waste your time with the bad stuff.

Check it out:

And if you want to get the links ‘live’ as I post them, click ‘FOLLOW’ once you’re there. :-)

Friday, October 02, 2009

Beer O’Clock: Oktoberfest

Neil Miller takes a look at his German calendar,and heads straight down to Wellington’s Malthouse clad in leiderhosen . . .

It has begun.

The 176th Oktoberfest opened in Munich on 19 September and will run through to October 4. Over 6 million litres of beer will be drunk at the event which is both the world’s biggest beer festival and the world’s biggest fair. Fourteen larger and several smaller beer tents and beer gardens provide enough seating at any one time for 98,000 of the expected 6 million visitors.

Oktoberfest began as an elaborate wedding commemoration for Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (who had narrowly avoided marrying Napoleon) in 1810. Since then, Oktoberfest has been cancelled only 24 times due to wars or outbreaks of disease.

If proof was ever needed that Oktoberfest is actually a pretty classy event, look no further than the organiser’s decision in 2007 to ban serial oxygen-thief Paris Hilton. The official reason was that Paris “cheapened” the festival in 2006 with her attendance but the real reason was perhaps that she had used her time at the festival to run an advertising campaign for canned wine.

Oktoberfest at Wellington’s Malthouse will enjoy some important differences from the German version:

While entry to both Oktoberfest and Octoberbest is free, a “Mass” (one-litre stein) in Munich this year will cost between €9.30 and €11.60 – almost NZ$24. That makes it almost as expensive as drinking on Auckland’s Viaduct. Malthouse prices will be lower.

On 24 occasions the German Oktoberfest has been completely cancelled due to epidemics (usually cholera) or wars. Neither of these phenomena is expected to affect Courtenay Place in October.

Smoking is permitted in the Oktoberfest beer tents even though Bavaria has some of the most stringent anti-smoking laws in the world. Oktoberfest has an exemption from the smoke-free laws, Octoberbest does not.

New in the Malthouse fridge is the very appropriate Galbraith’s Munich Lager. This is a rare bottled beer from the iconic Auckland brewpub. It is a Bavarian style lager which pours a pale gold with a firm head. It has a spicy, grassy nose, a sweet, nutty body and a crisp, bitter finish. Authentic German ingredients are used.

This poetic offering is by Rupert Morrish who notes "my local butcher makes these excellent Bitter and Twisted sausages for Galbraith’s." I suspect this is not the first time the dashing Keith Galbraith has had a poem written about him. *

‘NZ in Print’ – this has now gone way beyond satire [update 3]

IT’S GETTING HARD TO make a joke these days without some humourless bastard taking it seriously – and it’s getting hard to satirise the statists without giving them new ideas.

Some years ago, back before Al Gore invented the internet, a pale physics student from Otago called Bernard Darnton penned a piece of rollicking satire called ‘Achtung Fatso!’ in which he satirised the food fascists by exaggerating their programmes. Fat taxes. Guidelines on healthy eating issued by a Ministry for Nutritional Responsibility. The commissioning of a Body Mass Index Safety Authority. These were all satire back in 1997 – or they were, until the likes of Sue Kedgeley started getting ideas.

“We have a thing in NZ, a government body called NZ on Air. It shells out taxpayer money to local outfits to produce television programmes it deems worthy. It used to collect a dedicated fee from anyone who owned a television set before we freedom-fighters got that abolished. “One day, as part of an ongoing campaign against this monstrosity … I went on my radio show and announced that a new statutory body was being set up called NZ in Print, which would collect a levy from every New Zealander and use it to set up a govt-run daily newspaper. "This'll point up how ridiculous and indefensible NaZis on Air is," I thought. Problem was, listeners believed me till I told them I was pulling their tits. "NZ in Print" just didn't seem that unlikely in our Nanny State environment!”

I guess he didn’t realise that people like Fran O’Sullivan was listening.

This week in Wellington, you see, while purporting to talk about political blogging O’Sullivan was shamefully shilling for her employers. “Increasing commercial pressures on newspapers and diminishing resources to do investigative journalism,” was the bleat. Taxpayers stumping up for electronic media but not for paper-based was her whinge. Bailouts for newspapers! was her solution. What she advocated was that “NZ on Air should become NZ on Media, and all media should be able to apply for worthy ‘local content’ projects whether they be TV, radio, print or Internet.”

Oh. My. Word. What chutzpah! To confess that your employers’ Victorian-era business model is failing, and then to stand there demanding the taxpayer picks up the slack. To take a bad idea – govt funding of the arts and culture industry – and to use that to justify an ongoing bailout for your newspaper industry. Talk about a dirty business, and this from a supposed business journalist.

And has she been smacked down for it? Not a bit of it. For her trial balloon suggested journalists like her be given a tilt at the trough she’s earned herself a round of applause!

This is what Janet Wilson & Bill Ralston (the man who did to TVNZ News what he’d previously done to Metro magazine) call “an interesting idea.” “Fran has a good point,” they say. Lead me to the trough! they smirk.

What a bunch of disgusting, grasping low-lifes.

At times like this you can only wish that satirists would stay silent, and self-interest take a higher road.

It’s not just more welfare for Ponsonby late-lunchers that such a “solution” would deliver. It would also deliver a further kick in the guts to free speech – and make your daily newspaper effectively an arm of the state.

We already know what “worthy ‘local content’” looks like from the dross delivered by the NZ On Air dole-outs. Can you imagine what sort of worthy “investigative” journalism would be funded by such a body? It certainly wouldn’t be funding investigations into abuse by government, or of troughing in high places – that much is for sure – just the sort of softcock-Cameron-Bennett handwringing that contaminates your TV screen on a Sunday evening . Because as Nigel Kearney asked at Farrar’s place,

“Can Sullivan’s plan for a permanent bailout be done without the government deciding what investigative journalism does and does not get funded?”

No, of course it couldn’t. This would be chilling to free speech – it would be what I’ve called once before “a different kind of censorship,” and Ayn Rand called “the establishing of an establishment."

So what the hell does that mean? Sit back while I explain.

LET ME START MY answer to that by mentioning a story run a few years back by the UK Daily Pundit about every liberal's favourite UK newspaper:

“The Guardian [it said] is effectively being subsidised by the government and could go bust if a Tory government introduced a ban on public sector recruitment through newspaper ads. At present, government recruiting is costing the taxpayer in excess of 800 million pounds per year. Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, is promising to change the system to allows jobs to be advertised for free on a new official website. The cost of running the website would be approximately 5 million pounds per year.”

The Media Bulletin noted that "The Guardian currently dominates this market and, according to research by Reed Personnel Services, advertises two-thirds of public sector jobs." Now, I don't want to talk about that proposed ban or about the cost of employment websites. What I do want to talk about is that advertising. If Reeds are right, and there's no reason they wouldn't be, that's 600 million pounds of government money going to The Guardian every year by this means alone -- and I'm sure no-one would suggest The Guardian and its employees are not so stupid that they don't know which side their bread is being buttered on, and who it is who is doing the buttering.

You see what I mean by another kind of censorship? As they often say, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Do you really want the tune the newspaper’s whistling over your morning brekkie to have been composed in a government office?

Do you really want hard stories soft-soaped by journalists with one eye on their investigation and the other on their tender into the government for further work?

It’s as easy for a government to buy a compliant media by doling out taxpayers’ cash as it was for Helen to buy a compliant “creative sector” by doling out grants and dole payments.

It’s the second form of censorship that Ayn Rand called "the establishing of an establishment," and it’s surely no less chilling. As she says so succinctly:

“Governmental repression is [not] the only way a government can destroy the intellectual life of a country... There is another way: governmental encouragement.”

As a form of censorship this one is much more subtle,and much more appealing to trough-snuffling self-interest.

“Governmental encouragement does not order men to believe that the false is true: it merely makes them indifferent to the issue of truth or falsehood.”

That’s worse than flat-out censorship, isn’t it. It makes folk indifferent to truth and falsehood (and to the immorality of becoming another bailout bludger) and sensitive instead to what is deemed to be acceptable, and thereby lucrative -- and it encourages and makes lucrative that very form of sensitivity.

This is what Rand called "the welfare state of the intellect," and the result is always as destructive as that other, more visible welfare state. You see the establishment of politicians, bureaucrats and their minions as arbiters of thinking and taste and ideology; you see the freezing of the status quo; you observe a creeping staleness and conformity, an insidious unwillingness to speak out. What you see, in short, is "the establishing of an establishment" to which new entrants in a field realise very quickly they will have to either conform or go under. As Rand observed of the behaviour this kind of censorship encourages:

“If you talk to a typical business executive or college dean or magazine editor [or spin doctor or opposition leader], you can observe his special, modern quality: a kind of flowing or skipping evasiveness that drips or bounces automatically off any fundamental issue, a gently non-committal blandness, an ingrained cautiousness toward everything, as if an inner tape recorder were whispering: Play it safe, don't antagonize--whom?—anybody’."

Is that what you want your taxes to encourage? If you do then you can count me out.

The American Constitution effected a separation of church and state for a reason – one that is observed at least de facto down here at the bottom of the South Pacific. As Ayn Rand observed, the constitutional separation prevents a formal governmental establishment of religion because such a thing is properly regarded as a violation of individual rights. By extension, then,

“Since a man's beliefs [about religion] are protected from the intrusion of force, the same principle should protect his reasoned convictions and forbid governmental establishments in the field of thought.”

Think about it. And then send your thoughts on to people like David Farrar and Fran O’Sullivan and Bill Ralston, who should really know better. Remind them perhaps of that line I quoted above:

“Governmental repression is [not] the only way a government can destroy the intellectual life of a country… There is another way: governmental encouragement. . . .”

“There are many compelling reasons to save America's print journalism. And I'll think of some while the waiter brings me another drink. In the first place, one out of three American households is dependent on print journalism* . . . We need a swift infusion of federal aid. Otherwise all the information in the US will be about Lindsay Lohan's sex life.”*For house-breaking puppies.

“Now this is the funny part. We had objectivists, libertarians, fundy Christians, Conservative Christians, atheists, agnostics, homos, dying people, National supporters, Act supporters, Cactus Kate who is a category all on her own and one leftist, green aforementioned obnoxious ass. Everyone but him got on fine with much hilarity for the entire night except for this humourless prick.”

NOT PC’s Blog Stats for September

AS MOST READERS have done their level best to avoid noticing, September was Grand Final month. It was also a month in which we say a ten percent lift in reader numbers – which is never anything to sneeze at, and there’s no tissues being used here – but as evidence that correlation is not causation, not one of my posts on AFL ranks at all, and reader numbers in Melbourne and Geeelong have failed o go through the roof. Oh well. There’s nothing obvious to put the jump in numbers down to then, so I’m going to ascribe it to the good old-fashioned reason of good writing bringing in more readers – at least, I’ll keep claiming that until someone can suggest a more likely reason. IN the meantime, here we go with September’s stats:

“Unknown hero” Norman Borlaug diesIf saving human life is your standard, then Norman Borlaug was the greatest human being who ever lived. Shame today’s journalists never bothered even to note his passing.

“Leave Us the Hell Alone!”Do you like your day job? I do. My day job is designing people’s houses – or asI like to call it, building people’s dreams. How could you not like that? But you know what I don’t like most about my job? I don’t like all the nannying bastards who get the hell in the way of my clients’ dreams, and my working day.

Learner driverArrived home yesterday afternoon to find a near-neighbour had an unexpected visitor with a few parking problems.

Bye-bye BradfordHow disappointing to hear that Sue Bradford is leaving Parliament in October . . .

NOT PJ: Electoral Finance React

This week Bernard Darnton says something political, and doesn’t even tell the Electoral Commission what time he’ll be home.

The Electoral Finance Act is back from the grave. It turns out that incumbency protection is far more appealing when you’re the incumbent.

The Labour press release on the topic is not so much eye-opening as gob-opening. David Parker complains that “the Government is happy to consult only on aspects of electoral reform that suits it.” Yiddish lexicographer (amongst other things) Leo Rosten described chutzpah as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”

There’s no need to actually read the press release. We know what Labour’s preferred system would look like. Phil Goff may have apologised for scolding us about what shape lightbulbs we use and how many litres flow through our shower heads but you can be sure that Labour still knows exactly how many spots a leopard should have and won’t tolerate any alternative.

At the time the original Bill was being debated, National’s freedom-loving cohort – and it’s genuine, if inconsistent – was in the fore. A few cynics suggested that they were just in it for their own venal reasons but I was just happy to be fighting for something popular for a change.

However, like any large political party, National is also home to the pompous and the power-hungry. Their objection to the Electoral Finance Act wasn’t its contents but the fact they weren’t doing politics, they were having politics done to them.

Beside them were the thin-skinned – the ones who were upset because they weren’t asked nicely (or at all) about what should be in the new law. These people should get another job. If politics was about asking nicely for things I wouldn’t have so much to complain about each week.

So back comes the tinkered-with version. There will still be restrictions on who you can give money to, and how much. There will still be restrictions on what you’re allowed to say during an election campaign and in which media you’re allowed to say it. There will still be requirements to register with the Electoral Commission if you’d like permission to speak and to put your address on flyers so that nutters can stick knives in your lawn.

Advocates for election-period gagging rules, like Green co-leader Metiria Turei, are constantly in a flap about money: “It is vital that New Zealand’s democracy cannot be bought by big business.” Here’s the thing: it can’t anyway. The correlation between money spent on an election campaign and number of votes gained is very weak. As the New Zealand record holder for dollars spent per vote, I should know.

The Exclusive Brethren, another of Turei’s bogeys, know too. They’re always used as an example of what was wrong with the old system – big money from mysterious groups piling in to swing an election. The trouble is the plan was a complete failure. It didn’t work. It didn’t come close to working. If it was a dog you’d shoot it. If it was a person you’d insulate its house and pay it to breed.

Justice Minister Simon Power’s proposal document asks for more advice on “how the scheme could uphold freedom of expression, be simple and easy to comply with.”

Lindsay Perigo responds to Power’s challenge in the only way it’s possible to respond to wordy regulatory blather – by stating the bleeding obvious: “Well, here’s something simple, Simon. Just repair to Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act, which upholds ‘the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.’

“No restrictions on who may fund whom (publicly or privately), who may campaign for whom, who may advertise for whom and with whom – and no taxpayer money to anyone. That’s freedom of expression, Simon, and it’s darned simple and easy to comply with.”

So how’s that work for you then? How is this, a picture of a spent firework, different to your average “abstract” pseudo-art which smears paint randomly across a canvas? Certainly, Whistler got it in the neck at the time he exhibited this (1877) from contemporaries like Ruskin, who accused him of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”

But compare this, as Ruskin couldn’t do, to the likes of Jackson Pollock around eighty years later, who really did fling pots of paint in the public’s face. In contrast to Pollock’s random profligacy with paint, Whistler depicts here a real scene (a fireworks display over the Thames), from which he selects a moment to stylise in paint (a falling rocket!) – and in that choice lies the difference between art and bullshit.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Objectivism for fun & non-profit – Wikipedia founder explains

A while back I posted a presentation by BB&T banker John Allison in which he explained how his bank uses Objectivist values to make enormous profits. (Watch here if you haven’t seen it before, or watch it again, but with a pen and paper this time to take notes. :-) )

Anyway, by way of “contrast,” here’s a snippet of an interview with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales – with whom I used to engage on the old Atlantis email list back in the early days of email – addressing how Objectivist philosophy guides his non-profit work.

If you think those two views represent a contradiction, then you really haven’t understood much about Objectivism. Watch and see why.

"Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"

For two weeks we've heard and seen all sorts of fatuous bullshit emanating from the United Nations Building in New York, yet if the bullshit itself wasn't enough to turn your stomach -- much of it emanating from dictators and thugs for whom enslaving their own people is the normal order of their day -- overnight we've seen why the whole United Nations project is a threat to peace and a threat to the whole western world: because the United Nations talks peace but rewards violence, just as any body replete with the world’s biggest thugs would have to do.

It talks peace but rewards violence -- and as any parent can tell you, it doesn't matter what you say to a bully, what matters is what you do. Bullies don’t care about fine words, what they understand is fighting back.

So what happened overnight? I'll answer that in a moment, but first let's go back a couple of days - and I do that because the story I’m going to help recount shows the whole failure of the UN in microcosm.

A couple of days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stared the gathered UN delegates in the face, and asked them a challenging question: "Have you no shame? Have you no decency?" (I posted a link to that speech, a great speech, in my Monday morning ramble. And I’ll post it here again just because it’s so damn good.)

"Have you no shame? Have you no decency?" He asked that question, he had to ask that question, because at that same podium just the day before the UN played host to a dictator who’d just stolen an election and killed his own people who protested at the theft, a man who used the lion’s share of his own time at the podium to deny the murder of six million human beings at the hands of the Nazis -- and with a few noble exceptions who walked out (which I’m happy to say included NZ’s delegation), the delegates sat there in that hall and lapped up all the hatred.

The man was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he’s now working on a nuclear programme.

A nuclear programme Mahmoud himself has indicated could be used to wipe out many of the surviving descendants of those the Nazis murdered – to wipe them off the map.

Sanctions, you say! Because “sanctions” worked so well to bring down Castro. And Saddam. And to stop North Korea’s nuclear programme. Thugs and dictators who the UN didn’t just do nothing to disarm, but instead gave them a podium from which to preach and resolutions with which to protect them.

"Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"

Netanyahu challenged the delegates to see the Iranian leadership for what it is. He challenged them too over Gaza.

For years, Arab and Middle-Eastern countries have berated Israel for its treatment of Palestinians, but refused entry for Palestinian refugees to their own countries. They prefer to hate Israel rather than help their neighbours – hatred which the UN has supported. And for years, the United Nations has stood by in silence while aggressor after aggressor has attacked Israel, and stood up in condemnation only when Israel has fought back to defend its very life.

The United Nations stood by with its eyes closed while Iran armed Hezbollah guerrillas with rockets, which they poured into Israel from the North over the heads of mute UN observers.

It stood in silence for years as Palestinians smuggled Iranian-supplied rockets into Gaza, and said nothing as Palestinian guerrillas (backed by their government) fired the rockets into Israel from bases located in schools, in hospitals, in mosques, and from the middle of densely packed housing.

And what happened overnight?

Here’s what happened. The United Nations issued a report declaring that in defending itself against these cowardly attacks from Gaza, Israel "committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity."

"Have they no shame? Have they no decency?" Have they learned nothing?

The United Nations talks peace but it rewards violence; it talks peace, but plays host to murderous thugs; it talks peace but it rewards aggressors, and condemns those who act in self-defence.

No wonder the world is drowning in a sea of blood. Moral equivalence, the ethic on which the UN is based, rewards force used in aggression and condemns force used in self-defence.

Queens wharf stage one winners: it’s not the public [updated]

The five first stage winners of the two-week Queen’s Wharf design competition are announced this morning – my own entry wasn’t amongst them, and neither were any that I’d picked in my summary here a few weeks back – and nor were any that are likely to set the world alight. If there’s a winner here, it’s not going be the public.

Just to remind you, the competition was intended to select a design for a new cruise terminal and a “Party Central” for the Rugby World Cup an beyond.

(These five designs were selected by, wait for it, Murray McCully and Gerry Brownlee, ARC Chairman Mike Lee and Auckland City Mayor John Banks, “assisted by” the chief executives of the Ministry of Economic Development, Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City Council, and – as professional advisers – Prof. John Hunt, Ian Athfield, Rebecca Skidmore, Jillian de Beer and Graeme McIndoe.)

In total they represent a collection of sheds and seats and shipping containers – in a prime spot at one of the world’s best harbours – that (with the exception of #216 which at least has an overbridge to get them there) are somehow supposed to attract pedestrians from Queen St through a bus plaza, across two busy streets and out to their barren windswept plazas. Sheesh.

Which all rather reminds me of a quote I stumbled across today that you can consider as you view these schemes:

“A bold architectural statement turns a public building into a landmark, but it is in the details where the architect becomes the real storyteller.”- Curtis W. Fentress

Have any of these here got either of those qualities right?

UPDATE: More blather on this here at the Herald, who repeat the claims of the council’s press release that

“All five were chosen for their ability to strike the right balance between meeting the need for a great public space, act as a major celebration during the Cup and provide a world-class cruise ship terminal. “Other ideas include using the historic pattern of the wharf, major open space across the width of the northern end, a harbour pool within the perimeter of the wharf and simple sculptural forms for the cruise ship terminal.”

In answer to the trolls – and a lesson in courtesy

A troll wants to know what happened to the money donated to the Darnton v Clark court case that was left over after Helen changed the law to extricate herself from it. To find out the answer to this burning question, (well, “burning” to the troll anyway) I didn’t spam the question every ten minutes on every active thread here at NOT PC (which is what our troll did, one of the reasons my comments here are still under moderation). Instead I just emailed Bernard Darnton, something anyone with a computer and a connection could have done. And he replied:

“The leftovers from the DvC donations were donated to the Free Speech Coalition’s anti-EFA campaign.”

So there’s your answer. If you really wanted it, all you had to do was ask politely (remember politeness?)

And it’s a shame the Free Speech Coalition’s money’s been all used up, because it’s looking like we’re going to need to get active again against National’s EFA-Lite.

Must have, can have

If you’ve been meaning to buy books from the Mises Store, then now’s your chance. In honour of the 128th birthday of Ludwig Von Mises, one of the twentieth-century’s most successful economists in terms of his explanatory power – explaining all the economic disasters of the last hundred years well before they happened* – the Mises Store is offering 15% off, for the next two days only.

So rattle your dags and improve your economic education. If you’re new to it all, then you’ll probably want to start with something off these two lists:

‘Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train’ – Claude Monet

One of a whole series in and around the same Parisian railway station, in which he aimed to capture through the whole series of vignettes (rather than in one grand composition for which these might have served as a study) the vitality of these new “secular cathedrals” that then symbolised the modern world – a place where Monet could treat the smoke from the grimy locomotives, for example, the same way a Constable of an earlier era might have treated a pastoral cloud formation.

But a Constable would never have cut off the legs of his foreground figures like that.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

LIBERTARIANZ SUS: Dunne & Dumber

You can always rely on a politician to both meddle and bugger things up. And United Future’s Peter Dunne fits that bill even more than most.

This is a whinge about daylight saving. Not daylight saving per se, I hasten to add, because I love the concept, but a whinge about the starting time. In a nutshell, it’s too early.

I can remember when daylight saving, as we know it, started. There was a trial period over the summer of 1974/5 when I was a marching girl … now there’s an image for you! Marching was a huge summer sport for girls, with competitions held every weekend in centres all around the country. It was loads of fun with the added bonus of visiting all the Wanganuis and Waipuks along the way. Try to contain yourselves, please.

There were three age-related grades: Midgets (under 13), Juniors (13-15) and Seniors (16+). We were still in the Midgets that summer, ie just kids. Lots of free time in between required routines meant keeping a close eye on watches. Whenever Wendy, a team member, was asked the time, she would always respond with “ten past two, daylight saving time”which drove me nuts.

“It’s just ten past two!” I would reply tersely. “You don’t have to say ‘daylight saving time’ Wendy. It’s just the time!”

She would shrug it off and do it all again the next time she was asked. She never understood why it irritated me so – and I could never understand why she didn’t realise that the phrase was redundant. Poor old Wendy; stupidity drove me crazy even then. :-)

But daylight saving didn’t start in 1974. A quick check with the Department of Internal Affairs shows that the idea was first mooted in this country in 1895 and raised again in 1909; the second occasion by Sir Thomas Sidney MP, who was in favour of putting clocks forward by an hour during summer to extract the additional daylight. His Member’s Bill was unsuccessful but he was persistent, reintroducing it annually until it was finally passed into law via the Summer Time Act of 1927. Sidney’s assertion that “there will be a saving in the consumption of artificial light” was prophetic. Given the current climate, it’s a wonder he hasn’t been dubbed the Father of the Green movement or some such wetness … but I digress.

There was a year or two of fluffing around with dates, resulting in the extension of a half-hour period to make the New Zealand Summer Time officially 12 hours in advance of GMT. This seasonal adjustment occurred until 1941 when the Summer Time period was extended by emergency regulations to cover the whole year, the change being made permanent in 1946 by the Standard Time Act.

Fast-forward to 1974 when the fun began all over again. Sensibly, the start date was late October when the weather started to warm up and the days lengthen. Stupidly, the end date was early March when the weather was still warm and the days long.

The fluffing around with dates has continued unabated ever since. The nadir occurred a few years ago when daylight saving started so bloody early that parts of the country were still under frost. Even the spring lambs refused to make an appearance and stayed put. And in spite of the seasons having changed over the last decade or so with regard to starting and finishing later, the daylight saving period was still ending prematurely in mid-March.

Peter Dunne and the bureaucrats leapt into action and, who’d have thought it, got it wrong again. Two years ago the government announced that it had extended the daylight saving period from 24 to 27 weeks. In translation, it now means that it sensibly ends in early April, but – stupidly – still starts, too early, in September.

Look, here’s the thing. At this time of year the mornings have just started to lighten when we’re unnecessarily plunged back into darkness for another month; while it’s still too cool to really exploit the longer evenings.

Wouldn’t the logical course of action see Labour Weekend as the obvious start date?

It occurs at the end of October when the mornings are naturally lighter and the evening temperatures are better akin to outdoor activities (than September).

The long holiday weekend would give everybody the extra day to deal with the ‘jet lag’.

Everybody would know from one year to the next when daylight saving was due to start.

It would bring us into line – near enough, anyway – with the timing of the Australian states that employ it.

Or would that make too much sense?

Unfortunately, when it comes to Peter Dunne and the bureaucrats, I suspect the answer is yes.

‘Under the Birches’ – Theodore Rousseau, 1842

Part of the Barbizon school of French painters, and known as "le grand refusé" for the frequency with which his work was rejected by the fashionable salons of the day, Rousseau’s beguilingly simple realism captures the quotidian realities of life rather than its romantic extremities – but his treatment of light is quite superb, leading many these days to cite Rousseau (no relation to the other famous Rousseaus) as a precursor to the much later impressionists.

Monday, September 28, 2009

National to reintroduce EFA-lite [updated]

Remember the protests over Labour’s Electoral Finance Act? Remember the wriggling by Greens and Labour supporters attempting to justify this outrageous assault on free speech? Remember the campaigns against it by the Free Speech Coalition and John Boscawen? Remember all the heroes? Remember the subsequent abolition of the Act by National and the apology by Phil Goff – and the promise that National would eventually dream up something better with which to replace it?

The National-led Government's draft proposals for legislation to replace the vicious Electoral Finance Act make one wonder why National bothered keeping its much-vaunted promise to repeal that Act, since what is proposed by Justice Minister Simon Power is in many instances indistinguishable from what was, says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo.

For instance, on state funds for election broadcasting:

The Government is consulting on three options for reform of the broadcasting allocation as follows:

1. Status quo - retain the current broadcasting allocation regime. Or2. Moderate reform - allowing broadcasting funds to be spent in any media, and not just radio and television.Or3. Significant reform - allowing broadcasting funds to be spent for any purpose, and not just election advertising.

On donations:

Retain the regime governing donations to constituency candidates and political parties that was developed as part of the Electoral Finance Act 2007, and now forms part of the Electoral Act 1993.

On campaign spending limits:

Increase expenditure limits for constituency candidates and political parties (last increased in 1995), and periodically adjust limits for inflation.

On political ads:

Require promoter’s name and full street address and suburb which is either a residential address, or is where the promoter can usually be contacted during the day (cannot be a PO Box).

On campaigning by third parties:

The Government is consulting on two options for regulation of parallel campaigners:1. Proportionate regulation - this option will establish campaign expenditure limits and thresholds over which the parallel campaigner must register with the Electoral Commission - unlike the Electoral Finance Act 2007, however, the scheme is weighted in favour of freedom of expression, and is simple and easy to comply with. The Government is therefore requesting further submissions on how the scheme could uphold freedom of expression, be simple and easy to comply with.Or2. Status quo - this option could be subject to possible modification, such as restriction of parallel campaigning to New Zealand individuals and groups.

On radio and television advertising by third parties:

The Government is consulting on two options:1. Allow parallel campaigners to advertise on radio and television, provided that they are subject to a system of proportionate regulation (the first option proposed for the overall regulation of parallel campaigners).Or2. Retain the current prohibition.

On whether you'll be fined $100,000 for exercising your right to free speech:

The new stand-alone electoral agency will be tasked with publishing guidance on electoral finance rules and providing advisory opinions on whether publications amount to an election advertisement.

Penalties for electoral finance offences were increased significantly by the Electoral Finance Act 2007, as were the time limits for prosecution of serious electoral finance offences.[The Government would] retain the offences and penalties regime and time limits that were developed as part of the Electoral Finance Act 2007 and now forms part of the Electoral Act 1993.

"This is all contemptible," says Perigo. "Sell-out Simon asks how the scheme could better uphold freedom of expression, be simple and easy to comply with. Well, here’s something simple, Simon. Just repair to Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act, which upholds 'the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.'

"No restrictions on who may fund whom (publicly or privately), who may campaign for whom, who may advertise for whom and with whom—and no taxpayer money to anyone. That's freedom of expression, Simon, and it's darned simple and easy to comply with.

"For precisely that reason, one fears, the National Socialists will do the opposite and proceed with this reprehensible resuscitation of the very Act they so recently dumped. This would be sufficient reason to dump them," Perigo concludes.

Your democracy is still under attack, this time by the people who said they were going to protect it. Which is the biggest betrayal, do you think?

UPDATE: By way of contrast, David Farrar – a chief promoter of the Kill the Bill campaign- says of Simon’s EFA-Lite, “Overall it is a good document. . . .” Apparently it’s only bad when Labour promotes such things.

Meanwhile, Marty G. at The Standard is at least more principled. He was for Labour’s assault on free speech, and he’s for this one as well. Says Mart “At first blush, Power appears to have done a reasonable job and he’s done it by largely keeping the EFA intact.” Our evaluation of the latter is the same – it’s the former on which we disagree.

A Monday Morning Ramble: Welcome to a new week!

Been a busy weekend for Geelong supporters. So busy I forgot to post your regular Friday Ramble on Friday – so here you go with Friday’s news on Monday – the news and sites I’ve liked over the last week.

The only UN speech this week that was worth a damn? It was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling the gathered thugs, dictators and power-lusters how much Ahmadinejad is worth – and what a disgrace the UN is for hosting that species of vermin. Watch hm on PJTV from 1:40. http://tinyurl.com/ydlyazx(And the full speech here: http://tinyurl.com/y9cmv2j )

"The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason": Chapter 3 of Stephen Hicks’s Explaining Postmodernism is now online: ”This chapter covers Martin Heidegger’s integration of the two main lines of Continental philosophy, the origins and eventual collapse of Logical Positivism, and the resulting mid-20th-century epistemological void that enabled postmodernism.” Chapter Three: The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [pdf]

While I was otherwise engaged over the weekend, two blogs took exception at me banning the Rodbeater’s rantings from this one --- something they’ve only noticed months after the event. Adolf gets angry here lecturing me on “blog etiquette,” and again here . Poor chap, you’d think there’d be more important things to do over the weekend?! And the Rodbeater does his best to sound lucid here. Wonder how long that ruse will last . . .

CafeHayek: "Part of Keynes is compelling. What is not so compelling is the idea that consumption creates growth." There’s lots more error well summarised here. http://bit.ly/enx0

Tom Woods' book 'Meltdown' is "the single best analysis of the current recession out there." http://bit.ly/4e400y Sure is, Every rational home deserves a copy.

"The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason": Chapter Two of Stephen Hicks’s Explaining Postmodernism now online: “This chapter traces the decline of epistemology from Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” to the dominance of speculation and irrationalism in the nineteenth-century, setting the stage for the collapse of reason in the twentieth century, which is the subject of Chapter Three.” Chapter Two: The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason [pdf]

"Glibertarian—a portmanteau of glib and libertarian, a person who affects libertarianism when it’s convenient." And who’s its prime exponent? http://tinyurl.com/y9nt9dc

A Dream House for the Masses? We almost had such a thing once: and they’re still scattered all across NZ’s city fringes -- brought to you by Arts and Crafts out of capitalism. Read A Dream House for the Masses

Full "Free to Choose" Milton Friedman series now online – set your bookmarks and settle down to watch the TV series that inspired a generation of capitalists. http://tinyurl.com/kjefgb

"Kiwi house prices now only 1.4% below their peak of November 2007." And people are saying that like it’s a good thing! Yes, we really have learned nothing. http://tinyurl.com/kke9o8

Jim Treacher does the long overdue rewrite the sad sack Midnight Oil song: "The time has come To say dumb's dumb To stop this crap Our ears are numb The time has come A joke's a joke Now we're onto you So shut it, bloke

How can we put up with warmist dreaming? How can we see when his skull's so gleaming . . . " Hilarious! http://tinyurl.com/mmd5p8

On the 40th anniversary of the Internet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tells the story of the effect it is having on our society as seen through the eyes of the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of. Watch: We Live In Public – Trailer

This isn’t an economic crisis; it’s not a financial crisis – this we’re living through now is a monetary crisis. Tom Woods links to four different solutions to how to return the worlds economies to gold. How to Return to Gold

One each? And they call it a festival? I've drunk more than that just skiving off work and catching up on the blog for the last half hour.
*Only* 24 times? That seems rather a lot. I know they're Germans, but even they can't have had that many wars can they?
Bernard

Ahhh, but you have not seen the size of the queue, my son.
Nice post and accompanying photo. Love those mugs. Makes a man thirsty.
‘NZ in Print’ – this has now gone way beyond satire [update 3]
The Guardian, of course, should be banned in any society that values freedom.

And, of course, there is an even better way to save that last 5 million pounds: stop the government advertising jobs!
Sinner, I really hope that your regular comments here are meant as satire.

I fear the worst if ever anyone were ever tempted to take them seriously.
It's a sad indictement that in this day and age, one needs to write an article of this length to even make that point.....
It is already happening in government funded global warming researches. I had communicated via email with a NASA scientist in the past, where I asked him some questions about the models in a paper of his that I read.

He answered back my query in a manner that I thought was unusual, because his paper (available online on his NASA website), questioned and ALMOST rubbishing the climate feedback theory which was started by warmist Godfather James Hansen of how unreliable and inconsistent the Hansen's model and observations, because there is a huge gap there.

His reply was more like someone who is sitting on the fence but not rubbishing AGM (as he seemed to imply on his paper). He was sort of saying that we don't know enough yet , including not enough data that have been collected and then perhaps with improvement to current Hansen's feed-back model, and more data available, then we will find out the answer.

Considering that he is being employed by NASA, he was very careful in his reply to me, since to him I was a complete stranger that he shouldn't share his true opinions with, because that might end up on the net where his employer wouldn't liked what he said , in which it might be against government policies.

I am making a bet that if this scientist leaves NASA at some stage, he will join the skeptics group. As I stated, that he didn't say which camp (ie pro or anti-warmist) he believes in, but one can just read his paper to see that he is a skeptic. He just couldn't say it directly to me that he is indeed a skeptic, because I am a stranger that couldn't be trusted, and in his mind, I could be a reporter fishing for some comments in order to entrap him, etc...
I think my blog, nightcitytrader.blogspot.com, should receive $1 million in handouts from this scheme.

This will enable me to engage in research and subsequent to that a large number of postings on current events and politics in...say...the Bahamas, or the South of France.
Your logic is not like our Earth logic.

The Guardian may well advertise two-thirds of public-sector jobs; that doesn't even get within screaming distance of implying that it gets three-quarters of the public-sector job advertising budget. For all we know - the story doesn't tell us one way or the other - every national paper in the UK carries those same ads.

Note that the Guardian advertises a great many private-sector jobs as well. Including Reed's.
Vet, your 'logic' looks like 'journalist logic.'

The proportion of the public-sector job advertising budget that 'The Guardian' gets is irrelevant to the point being made.

What is relevant however, and highly relevant, is the proportion of The Guardian's income that comes from the public-sector job advertising budget.

When large swathes of your income are derived from government money you're going to know damn well which side your bread is being buttered on, and who it is who is doing the buttering.

That's the point.
"When large swathes of your income are derived from government money you're going to know damn well which side your bread is being buttered on, and who it is who is doing the buttering."

So true, so true. Now of course we know that some 60% of NZ's GDP is in some way 'churned' through the various governmental purses, i.e. we can safely assume that just about every producer and supplier of services is therefore for some percentage directly or indirectly dependent on the state's 'buttering'. We can also safely assume that the the rest is also in some way reliant on that same state in one way or another.

My resulting question: isn't the spider web already of a size and strength that we cannot avoid it any longer? Shouldn't we declare more radical means to rid ourselves of this entangling monster. Why not starve it of its oxygen?
Many local community papers depend on RMA ads for their survival which is why they are reluctant to criticise their councils.
With you on that one PC!

Next you will have Maori TV bidding for the RWC in an attack of the "me too's" because TVNZ are taxpayer funded as well. Ooops....

This is where googlemaps is great, Place de Dublin....
PC - Do explain. I can't spot it.

I like the look of the painting.

But re the meaning - the best I can come up with is something to do with the rain and all the wealthy people.

I.E something is coming down on the rich.

Or am I pulling crap out of my postmodern "lets over interpret this" arse?
I find it to have a bold composition, rhythmic, and flat. I like the first two elements, but not the last. Notice the kind of smudged blurriness of their faces. And Peter, doesn't the stoop look like it is on the same height or below the cobblestones?!
Alienation constructed within a Haussmannian urban landscape,and the Metro's on strike again???
My eye is drawn by pyramid-like form of the building in the background. The perspective was very carefully chosen and depicted, and suggests surveillance, and the social control that surveillance brings.

L
The man (+ woman) with the umbrella looks like young Ken, when he was there in Paris in a different time.
There an essay on this painting here:

http://sites.google.com/site/beautyandterror/Home/bourgeoisie-and-proletariat
Essay on the painting here.
Peaceful but busy day in Paris. The way he's picked up the light on top of the umbrellas and the reflection of the lamp suggests a photo it is a pleasent rain. I don't know...but it's kinda photographic?
Yes, Peter, there certainly is something going on there: Monet has put the Flatiron Building on a Paris street! ;-)
Well, not really Monet after all, was it....oops.
Auckland bloggers’ bar bash tonight! – now with an aftermath update!
Haha!

So, a question then, for PC Key:

Are you Left, Right or Progressive? :)
Me? I'm north to freedom. :-)
Spoken like a sneering, pseudo-liberal, cowardly Liberqueerian!

(Did I miss anything?) ;)
Too late. I've got something tonight. If you had put up a reminder yesterday (Wednesday), then I would have remembered. Oh, well, next time.
You missed Cactus Kate and Olivia dispatching, literally, Phil U of Whoar.

It was something else!
Madeleine, do you mean that Cactus Kate and Olivia initiated force against Phil U?Madeleine, do you mean that Cactus Kate and Olivia initiated force against Phil U?

If only, if only. It's called a Bloggers Bash for a reason: what better reason that to get out and Bash lefty bloggers?

Cactus Kate and Olivia initiated force against Phil U?

You are missing an important point with your implied criticism here. Libertarianism only prescribes the initiation of force against independent human beings. Lefties - by definition - are not independent human beings. They deserve everything they get, and it is out moral duty to provide it to them.
Damn! I should have stayed.I turned up at 6-30, didn't see anyone I knew so i left at 7-15 after 1 drink.What time did the action begin?
6:31pm ;)
Me? I'm north to freedom. :-)

You are not, your pretense to be is a reflection of your narcissism and self-indulgence.

You are a secular-progressive.

Genuinely capitalistic IMHO, but a secular-progressive . . think Peter Lewis or a George Soros wannabe.
"Spoken like a sneering, pseudo-liberal, cowardly Liberqueerian!

(Did I miss anything?) ;)"

Isn't comment moderation great ?! - no comebacks.
NOT PC’s Blog Stats for September
Dunedin is listed twice in the top cities
You have no idea how disappointed I was when I googled "boobs on bikes pictures", 75 times, and ended up here on every occassion.
If this blog has such a wide audience, and dare I say appeal, why is the Libertarianz party such an electoral basketcase?

Beaten 10:1 by the Bill & Ben party.What gives?
Angus, I am not sure I understand the connection between visitors to pc.blogspot.com and votes for the Libertarianz.

Are you suggesting Peter is some sort of old style 'Ward Boss' where he goes door knocking NOT PC readers and hands them a sample ballotpaper to take along to a polling booth?

One of the key aspects of freedom is the freedom to vote for whomever you like.

(Having said that I will mention my surprise at one of Peter and Julian's neighbours at the time posting an election day message on her facebook page proclaiming she had 'not' voted for them! ha ha!)

And anyway, I am sure half the Not PC readers are socialists coming here to see what their Masters are up to! hahahahaha!
At the risk of suggesting a connection, yes, we were beaten by pretty much everyone in the election.

The nation continues its moral and economic descent...
NOT PJ: Electoral Finance React
"If it was a person you’d insulate its house and pay it to breed."

Superb.
Exactly what I thought, too, Sean!
All a pretty good plan - except for one thing.

If unions etc and the labour movement have not been disestablished before this bill passes then the bill must include explicit spending provisions banning their contributions to any political cause whatsoever
Why not repair to what Perigo recommends? I mean, it's so bleeding obvious. Just let people say what they want and distribute their ideas by whatever means they like. Hardly difficult. Really easy to oversee (of course, that's it! You don't have to expend ANY effort or resource overseeing ANYTHING!). And that's likely the point.

There is no need to oversee or regulate anything here. None.

No need for a commisar of electoral finance.

No need for a second secretariat of electoral broadcast suitability.

No need for any of these stacks of shit. None necessary.

Simple.

Easy.

LGM

PS. Sinner, don't worry about the unions. Let them spend whatever they like saying whatever they like. All that is necessary is that that freedom of association is upheld. Beyond that they can sing arias from helicopters. It simply isn't anyone's business to oversee them, just as it isn't anyone's business to oversee another peron's opinions/speech either. Sinner, don't worry about the unions. Let them spend whatever they like saying whatever they like. All that is necessary is that that freedom of association is upheld.

Well I mostly agree with this - but only if you remove all the special protections unions have in our current laws. In other words, as Perigo might put it: remove all union and employment legislation and repair to racketeering and criminal conspiracy legislation.

When there are civil and criminal penalties for witholding labour (breach of employment contracts); for conspiring to damage employer's businesses; for conspiring to increase the price of labour, etc then I agree: we don't need special union laws or exemptions in the EFA and elsewhere.

Of course - in such a legal framework unions as we know it could not exist so it is rather a moot point.
Well Bernie, you could've been a tad more transparent about what happened to the Darnton vs Clark cash once the court case fell through.

Pharisaical libz.
‘Nocturne in Black & Gold: The Falling Rocket’ – James McNeill Whistler
There is nothing random about Pollock. His paintings are very controlled. It is notable that nobody has successfully forged a Pollock, which would be a simple task if it were just a matter of flinging paint at a canvas.
Paul

What you really mean is that nobody has discovered whether a "Pollock" was made by some other person. Doing that would be a very difficult task. Why bother investing the effort?

LGM
I have a question to expert artists.

Can an art expert tell the difference between painting/artwork produced by a human and one produced by a machine using computer vision technology?

For example, see the following images from the link below, where computer vision algorithms are being used.

Paul, I reckon that as computer vision technology advances over time (which I think it is still primitive at this stage), forging anyone's painting using machine can be achieved easily.

I came across a video demo before about a robot that paints artwork, but I couldn't find the link for that, even I tried youtube by searching on phrases/terms such as computer-vision and painting.

So, I doubt that an art expert will be able to tell the difference between machine generated paintings and ones produced by a human. I mean give the expert, say 20 different paintings of which he/she is told that they came from an amateur painter (robot) and a professional painter, and his/her task is to label them into 2 categories.

The expert is not told a priori that the amateur is a machine, since he/she will thoroughly examine the pieces looking for a telltale sign of machine production artifacts that will make him/her bias. I bet that the result will probably come down to almost 50 : 50 , which is what is expected statistically.
LGM, it would be difficult but very profitable if one could pull it off. People have tried but failed.
Falafulu Fisi: judging by the results of Artistic Vision on the website, I don't think there is much danger of an expert being fooled. The technology as described is a step forward from Photoshop filters, which do no more than alter pixels, but it is not enough to imitate a painting. All it achieves is to create a generic pseudo-Impressionist style, of the sort that 'how to paint' books favour. The images are still recognisibly photographic.

I doubt that software will be created that can fool the experts. A painting is made in an entirely different way than a photograph: it is built on the canvas, rather than being the result of a film exposed to light. That construction is the work of a distinct personality - the individual artist; a computer would have to possess consciousness (and an artistic consciousness at that) to be able to work as an artist. What is essential to works of art is that they are the result of human experience.

Apart from that, I think your 50:50 prediction is flawed because art experts have a distinct advantage: they have seen and studied a lot of paintings. One develops skill by application and experience. This skill is similar in many fields: a horse-racing expert can pick a winner in the paddock, a car expert can spot a lemon by listening to its engine.
Paul, may be what is described in the ArtVision is not near good enough, but I am convinced that machine of the future with advanced computer vision technology will be good in painting artworks in comparison to similar work done by humans. Not that the machine can think up something to draw out of its own (since they can't), but perhaps in the sense that given a scene to paint, such as the view of Auckland or Sky-tower from top of Mt. Eden for instance, the machine and the human will be required to paint that same scene. I believe that the 2 completed paintings will be very hard to be distinguished by an art expert, if say there were 20 different scenes altogether being used.

I haven't read the following paper (since I couldn't find a free-copy on the net), but what is described in the short abstract is exactly what I meant.

Abstract:=========In this paper, we describe a painting robot with multi-fingered hands and stereo vision. The goal of this study is for the robot to reproduce the whole procedure involved in human painting. A painting action is divided into three phases: obtaining a 3D model, composing a picture model, and painting by a robot. In this system, various feedback techniques including computer vision and force sensors are used. As experiments, an apple and a human silhouette are painted on a canvas using this system.

From : Painting robot with multi-fingered hands and stereo vision
Only time will tell. However, fakes made by people are often detectable because, while they are stylistically accurate, they lack the individuality of the originals. The most successful fakes are usually variations on real works. As soon as the forger tries to create original works in the style of his chosen artist, the inconsistencies begin to show.
Objectivism for fun & non-profit – Wikipedia founder explains
This might be sidetracking, but I think it might interest you (Don't post it if it distracts).

I think Wales' final statement reveals a Pragmatic position:"a tool to allow for common cultural understanding to help us sidestep sticky philosophical arguments about truth vs. Truth vs. situatedness, etc"

But if Pragmatic Jimmy identifies himself as an Objectivist, then he is one.
Obviously, commentators on this Benard Hickey's blog thread need to be educated in objectivism.

I am amazed at the number of commentators that direct ill wishes towards the farmer Alan Crafar (for his supposedly animal negligence), where Hickey broke the story into TV1 close-up program.

I think that Alan Crafar needs Tim Wikiriwhi and the Libz here to support his rights to enjoy his property.
I can't find the presentation, the post just links to articles.
When did Jimmy Wales become "founder" of Wikipedia?

It is a serious question, and one whose answer will reveal an exercise in revisionism.
"Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"
Bravo!
I second that.
I am pleased someone speaking to the United Nations has some balls and will tell the truth.

All credit to the chap - we need more like him.
What an absolute humdinger of a post!We need a lot more righteous anger such as this and less bloody handwringing.
Meanwhile, New Zealand has the Tumeke blog, granting Iran moral equivalency to Israel. Blithely claiming Iran's nuclear programme is a fundamental right, because Israel has nuclear weapons, ignoring the military coup that Iran has just suffered and the oppression of the local population.

The almost universal silence and unwillingness by most on the left to protest and oppose the Iranian theocratic military dictatorship shows them up for their shallow farcical childish anti-Americanism.
"..their shallow farcical childish anti-Americanism."Exactly.
Bravo!
"Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"

This from a man who represents a regime which has systematically disenfranchised 90% of it's citizens, who happenned to be Palestinian.

A man who has helped develop his regime's own secret nuclear weapons program.

Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad are two sides of a coin.
"Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad are two sides of a coin."

And yet Israel is the only country in that part of the world where my gender is no barrier.

You foolish man.
I bet that our darling Ruth will pop in here to say that Netanyahu is an asshole. She is anti (ANTI-MUSLIMS).
I'm no fan of Netanyahu, Monsieur, but comparing him to Ahmadinejad is overdoing it. Netanyahu at least was legitimately elected.
I opppose a theocracy wherever I find it. Be it an Islam one in Iran or a jewish one in Israel. Moral equivalency or principled stance?

I believe that any aggression should be condemned be that an unjustified invasion by Iran or the US. Moral equivalency or principled stance?

Lets not forget that Israels' claim to this piece of land is that their invisible friend promised it to them. A theocracy is a theocracy and aggression is aggression. We cannot condone either just because it's our friends doing it.It's called principles. And yes: it means measuring Islam and christianity and judaism against the same objective standard.

And please do not confuse my stance as apologising for Iran. I despise Ima-Dinner-jacket, because he oppresses certain parts of his population, but that does not mean I have to love Israel, who does the same. I do not deny the Holocaust which was a travesty, but this does not mean I turn a blind eye to Israels treatment of children, which is a travesty.Both sides actively partake in a religious war, because of orders received from an invisible friend. Nobody has the moral high ground here.
Peter - could you please ban "Monsieur Joseph" permanently. Or perhaps better, post his name and address so he can be dealt with more directly?

Frankly Netanyahu should stop bothering about ass-covering and genuflecting to Obama (and Osama). He's got the Jerhico IIIs for a reason -

Time to use 'em
Monsieur Joseph:Bollocks.Sometimes, a comment deserves no more than that.
Some readers need a reminder -- or it a head up: Israel is Moral.

"Israel is the only free country in a region dominated by Arab monarchies, theocracies and dictatorships. It is only the citizens of Israel—Arabs and Jews alike—who enjoy the right to express their views, to criticize their government, to form political parties, to publish private newspapers, to hold free elections. When Arab authorities deny the most basic freedoms to their own people, it is obscene for them to start claiming that Israel is violating the Palestinians' rights. All Arab citizens who are genuinely concerned with human rights should, as their very first action, seek to oust their own despotic rulers and adopt the type of free society that characterizes Israel." - Yaron Brook
@ Sinner"Peter - could you please ban "Monsieur Joseph" permanently"

I think you meant:Peter - WILL you please ban "Monsieur Joseph" permanently

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, was the same argument used to justify South African apartheid system.
"Nobody has the moral high ground here."

DA: I would be the first to agree that nobody is lily-white in that part of the world.

But I think your comment, the essence of which is summarised in that last sentence (as above), is a classic case of confusing theory with practise.

Israel is the only democracy (for all its - democracy's - limitations) in that part of the world. It is surrounded by 22 Arab states, most of which are hostile to varying degrees -- and none of which are democratic.

There is also a world of difference between aggression and self-defence.

(Not Jewish either, BTW, although I have spent time there).

LibertyScott has a very good post on this topic.
It's difficult to understand the Left's antagonism towards Israel - and Brook's romantic view of Israel is a bit odd as well given the millions of dollars the US throws at it each year.

After all Israel was born out of Socialist Zionism .The Right has never come to terms with kibbutzim for example - a uniquely Zionist vision of democratic utopian socialism. Israel's defence and backbone sprung from kibbutzim.I opppose a theocracy wherever I find it. Be it an Islam one in Iran or a jewish one in Israel.As PC has already said: Israel is not a theocracy - it is a democracy - and rather more free than NZ

As a democracy, Israel's leaders have the duty to defend their population. Frankly, they are already negligent. They have the capacity to wipe out Iran's entire Nuclear programme and their racist holocaust-denying leadership cast at the same time.

No attempt at a seperation of cruch and state, and no attempt at equality for non jews. All laws passed before the above "bill of rights" revoking the right of 700 000 palestinians to live in israel stand as per point 10.

So If you are not chosen by god, you do not have the right to live in the land chosen by god.

Saying it's moral does not make it so. Unless you happen to be god.
Difficult to understand the left's antagonism twd Israel, Ruth?

Not at all. You answered that in your next comment: the support it has received from the US.

The US had traditionally supported Israel, therefore the left does not. Another example of anti-Americanism for the sake it.

And as for kibbutzism: only 3% of the popn were kibbutzniks 25 yrs ago and I don't think that percentage has changed much since. The moshavs are separate again, but the great majority of latter-day Israelis do not choose to adopt that lifestyle.

It has been a very successful system, though, and was indeed its nation's "backbone" in the early days.
Correction: kibbutzim
the socialist state vs the theocracy. I choose neither thanks.The US had traditionally supported Israel, therefore the left does not.

More blatant ignorance: Sus - I take it your parents didn't love you enough to send you to a private school? The fruits of state education are obvious.

The facts are that US opposed most Israeli policies until after the Six day war. In particular, the US intervene on the side of Egypt in the Suez crisis, and threaten to wipe out the UK economy - all to support Egypt. Israeli nuclear technology was famously provided by its allies in the Suez war - France and the UK.

Another example of anti-Americanism for the sake it.

Precisely. And anti-democracy and self-hatred.

The best thing Bush could have done - and what will in the future be remembered as his single biggest failing - is that he did not wipe out Iran's nuclear programme, and the leadership classes, with strategic strikes when he had the chance. Half a boatload from a Seawolf with the old W80s would do it.

Now Israel should do the job as soon as possible.
The Israelis are total religious cunts and the Iranians are total religious cunts.Can't we just wait till they can both fire a big bomb at each other at the exactly the same time and do the whole world a favour?Why would we suppport either of these fanatical warmongering cultures? They will never change.
Gosh, lot's of you posting here are lusting for death, destruction, horror and suffering.... just so long as it is other people's death, destruction, horror and suffering.

A question. Why the lust?

LGM
LGM people have been 'lusting' for death and destruction of anything 'Jewish' for centuries - Adolf Hitler, for instance; these chaps on here are little different in their objectives.
Thanks for the advice, Sinner. I'll be sure to defer to your knowledge in future.

In the meantime though, the fact is that the state of Israel has a very short history - the Six Day War occurring a mere 19 yrs after its establishment. And Syria had been aligned with the Soviet Bloc since the mid-50s or thereabouts, a fact with which the US was obviously aware.

My typo "*had* traditionally" instead of 'has' is my error, (thus changing the context a bit), but it doesn't change the fact that the US has supported Israel for most of its short existence.

In my own experience, Israelis openly - and cynically - referred to themselves as the 51st state. The American Jewish lobby has also been active for decades in Washington.

You quoted Yaron Brooke,I take it to support your claim of Israel's moral superiority.

I understand he is president of the Ayn Rand Institute,but he was also an ex-Sergent in the Israeli Military Intelligence.You don't think he is a little biased?Ayn Rand Institute: Yaron Brook Biography
Sus

the french seeded the Israeli nuke program - against the wishes of the US.

Now when they really need to use it - once again against the wishes of the US - they are paralyzed.

Israel and the world will not be safe while the current Iranian government is in place, nor while Iran retains the technology and knowledge to create nuclear weapons. Israel can solve both these problems overnight - as can the us.

It is now a moral imperative that these problems are solved
@Sus:"It is now a moral imperative that these problems are solved"

Israel would in all likelihood be at peace with Palestine and the rest of the Arab world if they had seized the opportunity presented to the at the Taba permanent status talks. That Israel finds itself still immersed in this intractable battle is a consequence of Israel's decision to walk away from a deal for lasting peace. The situation that Israel has found themselves in post-Taba can truly be said to be of their own making. That the Israelis walked away from Taba is to their eternal shame.
Ernestoyou talk rubbish, classic putting the4 blame on the Jews just because they have said enough is enough.

the Islamists won't stop until Israel ism wiped off the face of the earth or until the Jewish Messaih comes whenever that's supposed to be.

Disband the UN too.Mikenz
Hi Ernesto .. I've already stated that (IMO) no side is blameless.

But I cannot agree with your conclusion re "likelihood" of peace. With respect, I think it's far too simple.

There is a persistent fanatical minority that will not rest until Israel is ruined/destroyed. Anwar Sadat's assassination is, tragically, testament to that.

Until the rest of the Muslim world, whom we're repeatedly told are peaceful, somehow prevent these madmen from supposedly acting on their behalf in the name of their faith, I cannot see any end to it all.

I speak only from my own experiences, of course. I think I might elaborate in next Tuesday's column, PC.
Sus, yes please do.

Although be aware that if you write from personal experience you'll only be accused of being "a little biased."

And I might do a wee piece on Israel's brief history, to help give all the ongoing arguments some context that some commenters here don't have.

In the meantime, here's a few question for all the anti-Israelites to ponder:

** In all the wars between Israel and other nations in its brief history, how many of those wars were started by Israel.

** In each of those wars Israel's armed forces were stopped on their way to the enemies' capital cities by the UN. Do you think the same thing would have happened if the roles had been reversed?

** In how many countries of the Middle east do all citizens —Arabs and Jews alike— enjoy the right to express their views, to criticize their government, to form political parties, to publish private newspapers, to hold free elections.

And to Devil's Advocate, who can't see the difference between a Theocracy and a Democracy, it's sufficient only to observe that Israel is as much a theocracy as New Zealand is.

It should be sufficient to point out the difference between attack and self-defence.

It should be enough to point out that post-war Jewish resettlement in the Levant did not happen because "God" promised Jews a safe haven, but because a Nazi Devil was killing their families in Europe.

And no, no-one could mistake you for an Iranian apologist. You're something much worse.
I take it that Pro-palestinians can respond to your ponderous questions as well...

Q1) In all the wars between Israel and other nations in its brief history, how many of those wars were started by Israel.

A1) One. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

The "start" of that conflict was the massive influx of Jewish refugees into Palestine after WW2, who chose to go there, rather than remain in Europe.

Q2) In each of those wars Israel's armed forces were stopped on their way to the enemies' capital cities by the UN. Do you think the same thing would have happened if the roles had been reversed?

A2) That's a hypothetical question for which there is no actual proof for an answer. Yes or No.

The Israeli's were not stopped on their way to the Palestinian capital by the UN in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.I think the UN will prevent harm from happening to the Israelis, when they give back the Palestinian land which they have taken by force.

Q3)In how many countries of the Middle east do all citizens —Arabs and Jews alike— enjoy the right to express their views, to criticize their government, to form political parties, to publish private newspapers, to hold free elections.

A3) None.
Question for Peter:

Do you think Yaron Brooke is a little biased?
Good luck Sus if you choose to write about this.It is like writing about abortion - no matter what you say you are going to upset someone.

I agree that no-one is without sin re the Israel/Palestine issue.

Remember how the Not PC folk all wrote endless heaving paragraphs about the glorious freedom-loving Iranian people after the election there? Now you want to bomb them again...Let me remind you of Glenn Greenwald's words back then:

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country -- actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People...

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way -- just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is. Advocating a so-called "attack on Iran" or "bombing Iran" in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many -- obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives. The same is true every time we start mulling the prospect of attacking and bombing another country as though it's some abstract decision in a video game.~ Glenn Greenwald

Nothing ever changes.
" I take it that Pro-palestinians can respond to your ponderous questions as well...

Sure, but I wasn't looking for answers based on fiction, but on non-fiction.

"Do you think Yaron Brook is a little biased?"

The word I'd use is "informed."
"It is like writing about abortion - no matter what you say you are going to upset someone."

Good analogy.

Thanks for the Greenwald excerpt, Ruth. It brings to mind the humanitarian 'dilemma' over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, don't you think?

I watched a doco last year where Allied soldiers fighting at Iwo Jima & Okinawa were recently interviewed. While expressing horror for the dropping of the atomic bombs, they were still, after all this time, firmly of the opinion that nothing else could have stopped the Japanese.

When asked why, they replied that the national brainwashing they saw first-hand was indescribable. They reckoned it was such, that every Japanese citizen - man/woman/child - who could have taken up arms against the Allies, would have. (Arms including garden tools, etc).

As such, they believed that the bombs actually *saved* the lives of millions on both sides. By far the lesser of two evils, if you like. It was a fascinating account from those who were there.

But back to Greenwald. This line struck me in particular:

"Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is."

A problem with that sentiment is that I don't see too much "humanising" of the Israeli people from the Ahmadinejads, yes?
Yes the bombing of Hiroshima did save lives Sus. But that is a silly argument. Japan was pursuing an *actual* war outside their borders.

No doubt the perpetrators of 9/11 see that as *their* Hiroshima.

Anyway I am off to the beach house for the weekend now - hopefully it is still standing!
@ Peter"Do you think Yaron Brooke is a little biased?"I gave you a question you could answer, but you wouldn't.

Don't worry. It was a trick question.With a Yes or a No, I would have rest my case.

The problem with Moral Superiority is that it is used to justify wars.Don't go there unless you must.The problem with Moral Superiority is that it is used to justify wars

This is not a problem. Indeed, it is an advantage.

If the US had the courage to feel morally superior to Iraq - or even the courage to allow Israel to enact their obvious superiority - then the "Middle East Problem" would not exist.

There is only one way to cut a Gordian knot, after all!
Bravo! Bloody marvelous well done.
@ Peter

I look forward to your "wee piece on Israel's brief history"

Here is some background reading which I am sure will interest you.The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs) by Ze'ev Jabotinsky.
Queens wharf stage one winners: it’s not the public [updated]
I'd be interested in why you don't like 170? apart from silly bit on the end
Okay, fair question.

Good: there's a strategy to get people out to the end of the wharf.Bad: there's just a wasteland once they get there.

Good: There's a beach!Bad: Really?Look closer.

Good: There are windbreaks -- and you need them.Bad: There are windbreaks -- which look like Sylvia Park has come to landmark central. Yes, they're moveable, depending on wind direction, but this is a council operation here: how often do you think they'll ever be moved.

Good: It's not the most expensive option of the 232 designs. Bad: Apart from a windbreak a glass shelter and a shed (an existing shed that has just been made bigger), there is nothing here. Okay, that's a bit churlish -- your man has brought the ferries further into the place, a good move IMHO. So apart from the cruise terminal and the ferry terminal, it's not likely to be well-used. Why would you go there? And if you think it's cheap to build since there'd be nothing much to knock up (apart from the mandatory cruise terminal made out of teh existing shed and shed extension), just consider that there's nothing much either to bring in any kind of a return. So just think about the long-term cost and the wasted opportunity.

So them's my short list of reasons: essentially that it's uninspiring and will be unloved.

Do you have reasons for liking it? Apart from the silly bit on the end?
The one headed up "100% Public" is a bit pathetic; trying to gain favour by reinforcing state ownership of what should be private assets.
But won't these all get drowned when the sea level rises by 6 metres?
But won't these all go underwater when the sea level rises 6 metres?
BORING BORING

Certainly will not be a DESTINATION, or a place people will want to come from miles around to visit.

No designs that make you want to visit or go there

195 is dead boring.

Where there any GOOD designs? (apart from your own I should say!)
In answer to the trolls – and a lesson in courtesy
Presumably this will satisfy everybody.. (although God knows why it would be important 3 years later)
Satisfy the trolls? Of course it won't, because that was never the real reason for their trolling.
It's notable that those supporting you on the blogs over this explosion of horsefeathers have been from the left side of the aisle.

Apropos of which, i came across this quote from Craig Biddle this morning on the failure(s) of the American Right:

"You can’t defend the politics of self-interest (capitalism) with a philosophy of self-sacrifice (religion). It’s either/or."
Biddle is exactly right. In one of her essays - I forget which one- Rand said that folk are drawn to the left because they are more intellectually rigorous than the right.

Sadly that is truer than ever today with all this religious nonsense.
Some ideas on how to handle trolls: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-04/st_thompson
Must have, can have
‘Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train’ – Claude Monet
Perhaps the man in the foreground is Toulouse-Lautrec.
LIBERTARIANZ SUS: Dunne & Dumber
Yes, yes and yes to everything you said.

The idiots who thought, if daylight saving is good more would be better, forgot that the amount of daylight we get changes with the sun's journey.

The benefits of moving the clocks forward outweigh the pain in summer but not in spring and autumn.
I couldn't agree more. I was just enjoying the light, bright mornings and now its dark and cold again. It's at least 2-3 weeks too early.
Give Labour a bit of credit. They brought in daylight saving and then extended it.Not a very big achievement for a total of 18yrs of nanny statetism. Wouldn’t the logical course of action see Labour Weekend

The logical course of action would be to ban "Labour Weekend"!

If NZ needs a public holiday about employment, how about having a Capital Day or an Employer's Day where people work for free to express their gratitude they've got a job.

Now that's fixed, then we can think about daylight saving...
whats the time Mr Wolf,Peter Dunne recorded the least expenditure for travel on the MP's list,some Maori MPspent $74,000, guess who?

some NAT deputy ripped you off, and all of those drivel Labour party hacks rip you off,sowhats this abouyt Peter Dunne?
Susan,

You write engagingly and very well.

Keep it up.

Geaorge
Thanks, George.

PQ: Why Dunne? Why not? He's the chappie who was responsible for the latest DS change.

(Plus, I confess that he cheeses me off anyway. He's a political prostitute. Why the hell the people of Ohariu-Belmont keep voting him in, defies logic. Maybe they're related to the people in Sydenham?)
"(Plus, I confess that he cheeses me off anyway. He's a political prostitute. Why the hell the people of Ohariu-Belmont keep voting him in, defies logic. Maybe they're related to the people in Sydenham?)"

BTW, your recent comment at 'No Minister' didn't appear until I posted my own. Obviously, you're spot on, but I fear the point is wasted on a diehard leftie like PM. He doesn't seem to like being contradicted. Funny, that.

Thanks.
National to reintroduce EFA-lite [updated]
How are those rats tasting? And what the justification for swallowing them all again?
No doubt Boscowen and ACT will be voting for this EFA-lite (a slight moderating of their position a couple of years back)... and rushing off to tell everybody how principled and libertarian they are.

Pathetic.
David Farrar is a Nat whore. If the wind shifts in one direction, Farrar will say amen. If it shifts in the opposite direction, Farrar says, amen. Farrar is a National socialist Yes Man.

Where is Judith Colin on this? She did partake in the anti EFA march along Queen St, about a couple of years ago? Why is she being silent on this?
If Key was a Labour Party sleeper all along in what way would his actions differ from what we're seeing?
The proposals out today are generally all consist with greater freedom and saying no to those who want to restrict it.

Of course it is not a totally unregulated system - but we have never had that. I measure laws by the direction in which they take us.

Things I would think most here would agree on:

* No increase in state funding (heaps advocated for an increase)* An option for removing the restriction on parties buying their airtime* No increased restrictions on donations* An increase in spending limits for parties and candidates* The likely removal of a retrospective regulated period.* Exemptions for all person opinion on the Internet as election ads* Exemptions for websites as election ads* An option for no restrictions on parallel campaigning. Yes also an option for some restrictions but hey you are getting asked your preference. So make sure you submit so it goes the right way.* An option for removing the restriction on third parties purchasing broadcast time for election ads

Again I am under no illusion that the document is one the Libz would draw up. But as I say the test I apply is will it make us more free or less free than the current law, and in many areas it may be more free. It will depend on what options are chosen and I'd encourage again submissions.
"But as I say the test I apply is will it make us more free or less free than the current law . . ."

Which is precisely the approach the Libz would take. The test however would not be "will it make us more free than Helen's EFA," since even Frank Bainimarama could draw up a law that could do that. but "will it make us will it make us more free than the laws the EFA replaced."

Between those two poles lies an ocean of spin.
The law attempts to increase freedom by allowing more parties to advertise during elections and preventing the two major parties from dominating debate.

Peoples interest in a free country are not served by only those with money being able to mount and run effective campaigns.

I would consider that the new act makes people freer to make a choice come election time because they will get more information about all parties EVEN the Libertarians.
This law, as with its predecsssors, attempts to restrict freedom. It achieves that by applying the notion that every individual requires permission from the government before being allowed to present political opinion publically. That this permission is usually automaticaly granted, should said opinion be presented according to arbitrary regulation, does not alter the fact that it is a permission.

A free country is not preserved by perservering with the situation where only those with the "correct" political connections, the "correct" political message, and an approval by the political establishment, are allowed to mount and run effective campaigns.

This law, as with its predecessors, attempts to restrict freedom. Hence it is an antithesis to freedom.

LGMThe test however would not be "will it make us more free than Helen's EFA," since even Frank Bainimarama could draw up a law that could do that. but "will it make us will it make us more free than the laws the EFA replaced."

That's a good test. I believe DPF's argument is that in many instances - e.g. the regulation of broadcast advertising - it would make us more free that the pre-EFA electoral law.
Graeme

However one attempts to rationalise it, it is still bad law which remains anti-freedom in intent and in practice. No excuses, it is no good.

LGM
“No doubt Boscowen and ACT will be voting for this EFA-lite (a slight moderating of their position a couple of years back)... and rushing off to tell everybody how principled and libertarian they are.”

I doubt John Boscawen has ever told anyone he is a “principled libertarian” – he does however support the freedom of expression particularly that of non candidates and non political parties.

You should not assume ACT will be voting for or against anything – the document contains a number of options – whilst some are all bad; within that some bad options are better than others. It will all depend on the final shape of the Bill that is introduced.

And remember ACT only has 3.65% of the say.

National will look to its old ally on electoral matters; the Labour Party for votes. That is why adopting much of Labour’s approach makes a deal do-able between them. National’s primary concern was less about what Labour did but rather the manner it was doing it i.e. excluding National.

National and Labour tend to go back and forth on an electoral law issue between them (eg enrolment) until one basically adopts the position of the other. Their mutual interests as dominant incumbents to restrict competition from outside the other is a powerful motivator.

The trick is will Labour’s position as one of the two dominant incumbents be better served by supporting National’s Bill or are short term tactical interests in mounting an opposition to the Bill on the basis of the scare and influence of “big money”more important – this closes out the Greens and some on the harder left who are challenging Labour/Goff to prove their leftwing cred.

Labour will be attracted to do a deal: it keeps the 1million in broadcasting allocation but much more importantly it needs largely a free reign on the use of its Parliamentary allocations.
A Monday Morning Ramble: Welcome to a new week!
Brilliant game, virtually non stop!
if you can't keep that aria out of your head....I dare you to listen to this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_lbJ1MaDeo

John DonohuePasadena, CA
PC

A great bunch of links there. Thanks.

I watched the full speech of Israel's PM at the UN. It was brilliant. This is someone who understands what is at stake in the world with an Iran attempting to get nuclear weapons. The best speech all week at the UN since the lives of the Jewish people is at stake, and he knows it.

Julian
I thought it was only me that thought Roman Polanski got "sympathetic" coverage in the mejia. A ped is a ped, even if he is considered to be a fine film maker.
Ah, Roman Polanski!

It is interesting to contrast this with the case of Mr. Veitch. Veitch and the woman he booted came to a private arrangement between themselves. She was not to complain to the Police or go public. In return he paid her "compensation". There was the argument that even when the story became public, it was not the business of the Police to start an investigation or to charge Mr. Veitch. After all both the original parties involved had come to an understanding.

Now, in the Polanski case it is well known that the victim publically forgave him for what he did to her. She is on the record as saying to leave him alone. She has no interest in having him pursued or punished any further. She says everyone should forget about this occurnace and move on with life. So the argument can be made that this is not business of the Police or Prosecutor's Office or government.

I'm interested in what you reckon about this.

LGM
"So the argument can be made that this is not business of .. (the) government."

That bit's not true, LG. Polanski is still technically a fugitive, absconding as he did.

And while I agree that it would be vile for his victim, now aged 45, to have her identity publicly paraded once again for goodness knows how long, the fact is that he drugged and sexually attacked a 13 year old.

It's been suggested that his virtual career boycott by US producers for the last 30 years has punished him.

But has it really, for a crime of that magnitude? (And yes, I believe he settled with his victim in 1993 -- and I respect that her current wishes should be acknowledged).

In spite of all that, though, he *is* still a fugitive.
SusActually, that bit is true. The argument can be made (indeed, the victim made it already). A similar argument was made on behalf of Mr Veitch.

In this case the victim has withdrawn her complaint and forgiven Polanski. How do we justify continued pursuit?

LGM
The tale of two pictures
Certainly is.

LGM
Now you know why they play the game so hard.

LGM
Splendid result.

My only hope is that next year Geelong will be defending against Carlton or Richmond (*snigger*) and an even more exciting final transpires.
Mate. I don't get this ocher soccer thing.

FORMER St Kilda captain Luke Ball said he struggled to look at teammate Nick Riewoldt in the rooms after Saturday's grand final loss, such was the devastation on the current skipper's face.

Riewoldt stayed behind closed doors in the Saints' bunker for as long as he could after the game before he finally emerged to embrace his family.

He was a picture of disappointment after the siren, having led his side through an almost unblemished season and finals series.

Ball, 25, said the immediate post-match gathering of the team after they left the MCG arena – with the premiership cup in Geelong captain Tom Harley's hands – was brutal.

"[Riewoldt] was the one that I found it hard to look at, because he was devastated," he said as he prepared to attend the Saints' post-game function.

"Half an hour ago, it was the worst feeling I'd ever had in my life, to be honest.

"It was shocking in there, just looking around at a few of the older guys as well."

He said even coach Ross Lyon, who did all the talking for the Saints in the lead-up to this game, said little when he pulled the players together.

"He was just as disappointed, no doubt, because he's worked so hard this year," Ball said.

Basically, he hopes we remember the feeling and come back next year with some fire in the belly."

That sort of passion is obviously beyond you, you dickhead.

A shame some All Blacks (and All Black coaches) don't feel that way just after they've been dicked.
Graham Henry doing a Crywoldt...No. I'm not going there.

Sorry if I upset you before.
So...you gave em a f***ing good hiding.....any broken and dislocated limbs to celebrate?
Understand it was a cracker of a game, PC, with both sides taking the lead. Also understand that GAJ scored the last points? Fairly low-scoring with only two goals in it, the way a GF should be.

Plus the Victorians would have been happy with no 'outside' teams in it. I knew old-timers who insisted upon referring to it as VFL! :)

Can't go your last comment, though. It's comparing apples with oranges. The Blacks play how many internationals every season? There seem to be more and more every year. You really think they gloss over losses?

AFL *only* has the Grand Final -- no tests; no international tours; no State of Origin. Which is why it's their b-all & end-all; do or die.

And fair enough, too.
@Sus - That there is exactly why I've lost complete interest in Rugby. AFL is where it's at.